New €3.5m Early Years Services Payments Announced

The Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Dr. Katherine Zappone, has announced the details of the €3.5 million second Programme Support Payment of 2017 which is now being made available to all Early Years services who sign up to deliver measures to make childcare more affordable from September 2017.

The new funding recognises the time services need to spend familiarising themselves with the more affordable childcare measures, signing contracts, meeting regulatory and compliance requirements and assisting parents with understanding how they can benefit.

All Early Years services participating in the Community Childcare Subvention (CCS and CCSP) and Training and Employment Childcare (TEC) programmes are invited to apply.

The measure provides for a payment equivalent to an additional seven days' funding for services. This will be calculated based on the maximum approved registrations to each programme as follows:

• CCS approved registrations during eligibility window;

• CCSP at any point from 21st Aug (when registrations commenced) to end November;

• TEC at any point from 28th Aug (when registrations commenced) to end November.

Services will be able to apply for the payment by completing a short e-form on PIP (Programmes Implementation Platform) from Monday 6th November. Further information is available on PIP.

(MH)